The Book That God Wrote, 2 Kings Part 1

Hey guys, I'm back, finally. Today we start on the sequel of Kings. We get more Elijah, more fun miracles, and some pretty crazy twists. Also, two of the most insane evil stories I've read so far. But, is it as good as the original Kings? Well read on to find out I guess.

Elijah! We Never Die!:

The sequel to the book of Kings begins with the new king of Israel falling off his roof. No, specifically he falls through the lattice of his upper room and injures himself. Not a lucky fellow this King Ahaziah eh? Here's a tip on how to pronounce his name, "Aha" as in "eureka!" and tack on the "zia" at the end. "Aha!-Ziah!" that's going to be my new battle cry, just so you all know. Anyway, dude is all fucked up from falling through his own room, however you do that, and he sends some messengers to consult the god of Ekron (Baal-Zebub) to see if he'll survive or if this clumsy move will be his last. Man, Baal-Zebub? Is that like Baal's cousin or something? Anyway, as the messengers are making their way through the wilderness towards Ekron, there's a sudden explosion of light and they're all surrounded by smoke. From the smoke Elijah materializes, glaring down the messengers. Woohoo, perfect way to start a sequel, BAM let's remind the audience how badass Elijah is. "So what the fuck?" Elijah grumbles, "You're off to ask that imaginary prick something? Is the true God of Israel not good enough for you anymore? For this your king will surely die." And with that he disappears in another explosion of smoke. See, what did I tell you about Elijah's knack for fucking up people's shit? He just lives for it.

When the messengers slink back to Ahaziah he's livid, "What the hell? Why are you back so soon?"
"Some dude appeared out of nowhere and told us off, so we came back home."
"Seriously? What did this guy look like?" Ahaziah struggles to sit up while his messengers describe their driveby rebuker, "Oh shit," he says when they're finished, "that was Elijah. I'm totally boned. Unless..." So Ahaziah sends one of his captains out to find Elijah and bring him to the royal deathbed, "Maybe if I apologize hard enough," Ahaziah thinks, "God will spare me after all." So the captain and his fifty men find Elijah out in the wilderness sitting at the top of a hill.
"Come down from there right this instant," calls the captain. Elijah merely laughs and calls fire down from heaven to torch the son of a bitch and all of his men, leaving only smoldering terrified looking skeletons. That's right folks, Elijah just torched fifty men. When Ahaziah hears of this he just sends another captain with another fifty men to get Elijah.
"Um Elijah," the captain calls while carefully stepping around the charred bones of his colleagues, "could you please um get your ass down here?"
"Hmm" Elijah muses, "let me think about it ... Nope, fire!" and again fire bellows down from heaven consuming the captain and his fifty men. "Nice try though," Elijah smirks to himself.

So by now you'd think that Ahaziah would have learned his lesson right? Nope, he just sends another captain and another fifty men. This captain had learned his lesson though, he tiptoes carefully around the scorched skeletons and climbs up the hill to meet Elijah. When this captain reaches the top of the hill he bows low at Elijah's feet and says, "Elijah, could you please come with us? Like, I know you torched a hundred men and seriously, I'm just doing my job, could you please spare us and come to the king? Please?"
Elijah smiles, "Sure," and he follows this captain and his fifty men to the deathbed of King Ahaziah. Turns out it was all a waste though, because Elijah doesn't spare Ahaziah, he just tells him to his face exactly what he told the messengers. "Nice try though," Elijah smirks and disappears in a puff of smoke.

Hey, did you know that Elijah is so badass that he can never die? Truly, let me explain. Elijah and his servant Elisha (pictured below)

Wow, lucky bastard.

Wait, sorry, wrong Elisha. Anyway, the two of them are bombing around Israel, and everywhere they go Elisha is approached by some prophets. "Like omg Elisha, you know that Elijah's end is coming soon, lol."
"Shut up," he'd scream, "I don't wanna talk about it." Elijah was oblivious to all of this of course, I guess, it isn't exactly clear. In any case he at least pretends not to notice the prophets, Elisha's freak outs, and his teary eyes. Eventually they make their way to the Jordan river, see there's one thing Elijah has always wanted to do before he dies, sort of the last thing on his bucket list. I know what you're thinking: what in the bloody hell could he possibly have left to do? He brought a dude back to life, won a contest with Baal boys, made it stop raining for years and then made it rain again. I'd say he had a pretty productive life, wouldn't you? Well, like I said, one last thing, Elijah walks up to the Jordan river, smacks it with his coat and the river parts, Elijah and Elisha cross over the Jordan River on dry land. Take that Moses, looks like someone was keeping score yeah? Elijah just wanted to make sure he was the most badass mother fucker in the Bible.

Turns out he was, that was the final victory point, Elijah won. After they crossed the Jordan, the heavens open up and a chariot made of fire pulled by fire horses swoops down to Elijah. And like the total badass he is, he steps into a fucking chariot made of fire. Yeah if I saw anything made of fire coming my way I'd bomb the fuck out, not Elijah. Nope, he's all, "This is new, think I'll just jump in it." Then the fire chariot takes Elijah directly up to heaven to chill with God. That's right folks, Elijah was too hardcore to die, God sent him a goddamn taxi to take him directly into heaven. Like I said, Elijah won.

So Elisha was there and witnessed his best bud ascend into heaven, that'll do a number on you huh? Anyway, Elijah left his coat behind, that's right he's so badass he doesn't even take his coat with him on trips. That is really badass, I always bring my coat places, might get cold you know. Anyway, Elisha takes Elijah's coat as a souvenir, you know, something to sniff delicately on his lonelier nights, and makes his way back to the Jordan. For whatever weird reason the prophets are on the other side. What the fuck, are you creepy bastards following Elisha around? It's bad enough that you wouldn't leave the guy alone about his friend going to "die" soon, but now you show up to gloat? Well, not really, when Elisha gets to the Jordan he hits the river with Elijah's cloak, in memory of his friend, but hey, the river parts and Elisha crosses on dry land. Luckily the prophets are there to be all, "Omg, you're totes Elijah's spirit now, rofl lol bbq." Ugh, those lesser prophets are so annoying. They're so lame in fact, they go searching for Elijah, as if he'd be around. Seriously, if you ascended directly into heaven riding a fire chariot of awesome would you ever come back to this dingy ass earth place? I know I wouldn't. Which is exactly what Elisha tells them, in so many words. Still they try though, only to come up empty handed, "Fml guys," they scream to the heavens, "FML!" Stupid lesser prophets, think they know so much just because they have an app that lets them talk to God in their dreams. Posers.

The Baldhead Bears:

So Elisha truly does carry on the torch from Elijah, right off the bat he shows off with a number of pretty badass miracles. Let's see, he fixes a poisonous well with salt, he saves a woman's family by magically mass producing oil, he strikes an entire army blind and leads them into an enemy stronghold, he brings a dead kid back to life in exactly the same way that Elijah did ... humping him back to life. Hell Elisha even feeds hundreds of people with twenty loaves of bread and heals a dude of leprosy, all hundreds of years before Jesus was even born. Basically Elisha was a badass, what can I say, he learned from the best. Was he more badass that Elijah? Nah, Elisha was getting his power from Elijah afterall, he actually asked for a double portion of his predecessor's spirit (2:9). But we might as well consider this Elisha fellow as the second regeneration of Elijah.

Like this guy.

Though, in my opinion, the most badass, albeit completely evil, thing Elisha ever did was when he traveled to Bethel. While he was traveling down the road a bunch of kids came out and started talking shit. "Go on up you baldhead! (2:23)" they jeered. Seriously, that's straight from the Bible, they called him "baldhead," which is kind of funny in and of itself. They must have been in like second grade or something with lame burns like that, "Hey baldhead, why don't you go grow some hair; my dad could beat up your dad; you smell like a pee grenade went off," and whatnot. Well, Elisha is not fucking amused, this dude calls some fucking bears to bomb down and maul the shit out of these kids. Seriously, Elisha just retaliated with fucking bears ... against some kids. What's more, he doesn't just attack those kids with bears, no, here's what the "good" book says, "He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths (2:24)." Elisha just killed 42 fucking kids with bears, just because he was called "baldhead." I don't know, call me crazy, but I think you might've overreacted a little bit there Elisha. In any case, we just learned two things about Elisha, one: don't fuck with him 'cause he'll attack you with bears, and two: he was bald.

And an evil genius.

What astonishes me at times is how dumb some miracles in the Bible really are. I mean healing leprosy? Yes that's awesome, good job. But, one day Elisha was hanging out with some lumberjacks I guess. So this lumberjack is chopping away at some wood and he swings back a little hard (that's what she said ... er wait) and the head of his ax flies off and splashes into the Jordan river (that's what sh- I'll stop, sorry). "Oh no!" the lumberjack whines, "I borrowed this ax, Jimmy's gonna be so pissed." Elisha jumps into action, "I'll save you!" he throws a stick in after the axhead and tada! it starts floating so that the lumberjack need only reach out and grab it. That's right kids, Elisha made an axhead float ... woohoo. I mean you just saved that lumberjack some money, so I guess that's good. Hm maybe he was just making up for the whole killing forty-two kids thing. Yeah Elisha, it's gonna take more than a fucking saved ax to fix that shit, just saying. Oh, and bringing one dude back to life and healing one dude of leprosy isn't going to cut it either. Just so we're clear.

That's Not What I Meant By Veal:

Hey do you want to hear the worst story ever? Some time later Ben-Hadad came rolling up and sieged the city of Samaria. Oh hey, the frat boys are back, fuckin great, remember them? Anyway, this siege lasted so long that Samaria started running out of supplies, and there was a famine in the city. In fact, according to the Bible, shit was so bad that, "A donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels (6:25)." Eighty shekels of silver for a donkey's head? That is way too fucking expensive, I can't even believe that shit. I mean, I bought my donkey's head for like two shekels, and that was a really nice donkey's head too, and that was even in 1998 shekels, just to give you an idea of how insane that is. So, anyway, the king of Israel was just making his rounds around the city when a woman came up to him begging for help. "I'll help if I can," he says, "what's up?" So the woman tells him this story, and it's just ... shit let me just quote it. She said, "This woman said to me, 'Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.' So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, 'Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him (6:28-29)."

Yeah, so there's a story they never told us in Sunday school, it's like we just stumbled into The Road or something. So like, what does this woman want? I mean this is like some disturbing parallel to the baby stealing story of Solomon's day right? But at least that woman had an understandable purpose, to get her fucking baby back. What's up here? Can't get your baby back retard, you fucking ate him. And do you really think it's a good idea to admit to the authorities that you ate your own child? Are you here so that the king will force the other mother to let you eat her kid? I don't think there's any king in the world that would agree to that, no matter how evil and godless they are. And seriously, why did you agree to this horrible horrible plan? What kind of a mother eats their own child? I always figured moms would rather die than do something that fucking horrible, no matter how starving they were. Eat their dumb husbands sure, but their children? No way ... unless they were like this kid:

Damn it feels good to be an antichrist.

I would eat that kid if it came down to it. Though he'd probly give you indigestion.

So anyway, the king freaks out and rips his clothes, which is an appropriate reaction to hearing this story. I ripped my clothes when I read this too, but that's 'cause my girlfriend was over and I suddenly wanted to show her my floating axhead. A little advice, zippers and buttons don't take as long as you think, ripping clothes is sort of wasteful. Anyway, better stop before I get a thrashing, so the king says, "May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today (6:31)." So wait, like I know that this is a horrible story, one of the worst I've read in the Bible (which is saying something), but what the fuck does Elisha have to do with any of this? A woman ate her own child because she was starving, if you cut off anyone's head shouldn't it be hers? Isn't the punishment for child eating execution? Nope, apparently the punishment for child eating is executing some random person not related to scenario in any way, that sounds fair. Maybe he's just blaming Elisha for the whole famine thing ... if that's the case then the king's getting his facts out of order. It was Elijah that caused the long ass drought, not Elisha, and that was years ago. As far as I can tell Elisha had nothing to with this.

Anyway, the king sends a bunch of dudes to take care of Elisha. Don't worry, Elisha's an evil genius remember? What badass miracle does he have up his sleeve to save himself? A great one actually, he locked the fucking door. BAM, can't get in now can you assholes? Elisha just burned you with the miracle of locked doors. Well okay, Elisha does pull out a miracle, he stops the famine ... sorta. See the next day all of Ben-Hadad's men disappeared, but they left all their tents and stuff. Apparently they drank so much the night before that they saw some gigantic pink war elephants. Ben-Hadad knows better than to fuck with pink war elephants (what frat boy doesn't know that?) so he and his men get the fuck out of dodge. Pink elephants are serious shit you know, so serious they leave everything behind, and I mean everything. They left enough food to feed the entire city and thus end the famine. Hooray! Though what this has to do with the child eater I'll never know. I guess ending the famine was enough, good thing it'll never happen again and all that. We never hear from the woman again though, but I guess living with the knowledge she ate her son days before the famine ended was punishment enough ... Nah, she deserved to be mauled by two bears, don't you think?

Alright guys, that's enough for today, check back in twenty or so years for part 2. What do you have to look forward to? Well, Jezebel shows up again, that'll be fun, I promise. See you then.